March 17, 2006
Blacks Vs. Hispanics At the University of
Miami
By
Joe Guzzardi
The
University of Miami janitors strike spread this week.
But, sadly, the indignation it is causing did not.
In
my last column
Justice for Janitors—or Jobs for Americans, I wrote
that UM’s custodial staff, actually employed by the
privately-held Boston-based
services giant UNICCO, had
initiated a strike in an effort to improve their
average wage of approximately $7.00/hour, and to secure
health care and other benefits.
This
week the janitors branched out from the main UM Coral
Gables campus to picket the university’s medical center
at Jackson Memorial Hospital and to
Miami International Airport where UNICCO also has a
contract. [Few
Janitors Eager to Join Strike at MIA, By Niala
Boodhoo, Miami Herald, March 15, 2006]
And
separately, the force behind the strike, the
Services Employees International Union, raised $500,
000 through its members and organized a noxious
Si Se Puede rally. SEIU hopes to unionize the
janitors.
Although more than two weeks have passed since the
strike began, the
issue of whether the janitors—many illegal aliens
from the Caribbean and Latin America—should be
deported remains unmentioned save for irate letters
from VDARE.COM readers to UM president Donna Shalala. [Send
her mail]
Sane
observers close to the scene have weighed in.
A UM
undergraduate history major wrote me in reference to
sympathetic professors who moved their classes
off-campus to honor the picket line.
It
will be, he says, "inconvenient" and "time-consuming"
to attend off-campus classes since he does not "own a
car."
The
student, who works full-time to pay the $36,000 yearly
tuition, says he is "more furious than ever at the
morons that caused this problem and at my irresponsible
professors who buy into and propagate the elites' B.S.”
And
an alumnus wrote that in light of the custodians’
illegal status, he has:
"…absolutely no sympathy for them. What I find
particularly offensive are the attitudes of the
professors and students who are demonstrating their
support for the illegals. Why should a professor move
his class off-campus in order for the students not to
cross the strikers' picket lines? The professor is
imposing his political views upon the students, not to
mention inconveniencing them.
I
most certainly will take all of this into consideration
the next time I am contacted by Miami as an alumni
asking for money."
Where, however, is the
American worker’s indignation? Assuming the
likelihood that UM and UNICCO will cave in and a new
contract will be signed, the job will then be one that
is attractive to thousands of
unemployed Americans.
(See
a summary of the successful results of a similar strike
involving Harvard University’s custodial staff and
UNICCO
here. UNICCO employees working at Harvard now earn
about $14.00/hr. with benefits.)
And
where, particularly, are
unemployed black Americans and their
leadership? Apparently, they remain content to sit
on the sidelines and watch illegal aliens take over.
That’s a pity because so many blacks need, want and
deserve jobs.
According to Census 2000, the black unemployment rate is
13.8 percent in
Dade County and 10.2 percent in
Florida.
And
as bad as that is, cast your eyes on this eye-popping
figure from the 2004 Bureau of Labor Statistics: 40
percent of working-age African-American men are
unemployed.
The
question blacks should be asking is, where is liberal
Democrat, former
Health and Human Services Secretary, Donna Shalala
when they need her the most?
The
ugly answer: busy ignoring blacks and exploiting
illegal aliens.
What
is it going to take to make blacks
wake up and smell the
coffee? Right now, blacks in America are barely
holding on to the significant gains they made during the
Lyndon Johnson civil rights era.
All
the current
political emphasis is on the growing Hispanic
presence as Republicans and Democrats duke it out for
that voting block.
Last
year, Hispanics passed blacks as the nation’s largest
minority—driven mostly by illegal immigration— without
so much a whimper from
African-American leadership.
As
long as blacks are willing to be run over, they can
expect much more of the same insulting treatment.
Here’s a good example.
Two
weeks ago Arizona Senator John McCain, a front-runner
for the Republican Party nomination in 2008, traveled to
Florida’s
Miami Dade College to address a typically one-sided
"immigration reform rally"
And
McCain immediately hooked up with Cuban-born Congressman
Lincoln Diaz-Balart, an
open borders advocate with few equals.
McCain knows two things. One, if he’s nominated, he’ll
never get the Florida black vote. And two, if he
expects to carry Florida, he’ll need all the
Hispanic votes he can muster.
Consequently, McCain is forever sucking up to Hispanics
while showing little interest in blacks.
Joyce Tarnow of
Floridians for a Sustainable Population reported to
me from the scene of the crime.
She
said that McCain:
"…was
excessively pandering and brought shame on himself.
U. S. Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart was even worse as he did
his passionate diatribe about ‘bringing these honest,
hard-working people out of the shadows.’"
And standing close to
McCain and nodding in agreement was Diaz-Balart’s
Florida Congressional colleague Rep. Kendrick Meek.
Black officials
consider Meek (who like Diaz-Balart has an appalling
immigration record) a rising star. Meek is Chairman of
the
Congressional Black Caucus Foundation.
But apparently Meek’s
light bulb is out. Where do you suppose Meek thinks the
Hispanics are going to
work if they "get out of the shadows?"
Meek, apparently, has
not realized that newly arrived
Hispanics compete directly with blacks for certain
jobs.
Or maybe Meek shares
Mexican President Vicente Fox’s
opinion that Hispanics do
jobs that
"that not even blacks want to do."
Whatever mental block
black leaders like Meek have about illegal immigration,
what it boils down are these two choices:
